Hockey Point Spreads

Hockey is Canada’s most important sport, with increasing betting popularity for the US and World audience and with a wide array of betting choices, such as the point spread. To understand hockey point spread betting better, let us first look at the money line, which is something everyone should be familiar with in order to better enjoy their bets, regardless of the hockey bet type.

Let us provide you with a little example for a better picture. In a money line bet the negative number in the online sportsbook’s odds page represents the favorite team, while the positive number represents the underdog, the team less likely to win according to what is on paper and/or previous results.

Following the above example, in order for you to win $100 when choosing the favorite, you will have to wager $115. If you go ahead and choose the underdog, the Florida Panthers in this example, you must place a $100 bet in order to receive a possible payout of $270; hence the reason why betting on the underdog is so tempting.

That taken care of, we can now continue with hockey point spread betting, which by definition, a point spread is the scoring difference between the game’s two opponents (the two teams).

Again, let us use the example above to illustrate how one would win a wager or place a wager. If you choose the team that is favored, the Washington Capitals in this case, then they must win by the point spread number indicated next to the money line for you to win your bet; they must win by 2.5 or more goals, a tough line for hockey standards, where scoring is minimal.

Now if you were to choose the underdog team, the Florida Panthers, using the -2.5 next to it, they must not lose by more than 2 goals for you to win your bet. Obviously if they win the game, you win the bet as well.

Now why use the .5 in the point spread? Well, the .5 is used to eliminate any possibilities of a tie happening, which would end up with the online sportsbook returning bets to their suitors, a “push” in other words.

Benefit to Using a Point Spread vs. a Money Line

We understand that as a bettor who is on a fixed budget, you do not want to bet a gross amount of money on a favorite. Regular hockey money lines are a bit more expensive in terms of betting on the favorite than that of point spread; so, hockey point spread betting in summary is way more affordable to those not wanting to throw down $100 to gamble, especially when the underdog is looking good.

Tips for Betting Hockey Point Spreads

There are a number of ways to pick out a strategy that works for you, what we would call the hockey point spread betting tips. Like everything in life, sports betting and hockey games can get complicated, unpredictable, and hard to bet on if you are just getting in the game.

There are a lot of variables to account for and think about before the drop of the puck, so you might want to scout some reports, read up on a team’s injured reserve lists, confirm who will be the starting goaltenders, as well as take into account a team’s fatigue by just coming off a game from the previous night or even from a long road trip. Study as much variables and factors as possible, and you will see a noticeable improvement in your betting results for your hockey point spread online betting, and other betting types.

When betting on games it is important to do the proper research and homework on the certain teams involved in a matchup, which we recommend you do by studying these stats on our online sportsbook list, so go over them through our links, and make your hockey bets now.